This was exactly what I needed to wake up to—thank you!

It also very synchronistically ties into a piece I’m working on about how using a pen name and starting to write has given me a platform and the freedom to truly be my authentic self. This is where the parts of me that I’ve been hiding and curating in order not to be ‘too-much’ are allowed to come out.

I came into writing via being a graphic designer, and because I started re-writing my clients’ copy for them, even though I was never asked to—but I couldn’t get myself to design around copy didn’t sound right, and that didn’t sound like them. I still have one client that I write everything for because I know her so well, I can literally put myself in her shoes and write with her voice.

But more and more, I felt the urge to write from my own experiences and that’s how I slowly dared to take all of the hundreds of notes and half-finished stories saved in folders on my laptop, structure them properly, and share them. With my own writing, I find it impossible not to be candid. The few times I’ve thought to myself that I might do better if I write ‘lighter’ articles that are less painful to ‘get out’, it simply doesn’t work, and I quickly abandon the idea and keep writing what wants to come out instead.

Thanks again for your words and insight! I always enjoy reading writers where I feel like I get to know them when I read them—where I literally start hearing their voices and imagining their gestures and expressions through their words—and you’re definitely one of them!

❤